


Ascendant

by Ausp_ice



Series: Ascendant [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, It's Connor you know, Near Death, There is Cover Art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22640698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ausp_ice/pseuds/Ausp_ice
Summary: Do not stand at my grave and weep.I am not there. I do not sleep.
Relationships: Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900, Hank Anderson & Connor, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Upgraded Connor | RK900 & Gavin Reed
Series: Ascendant [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629997
Comments: 16
Kudos: 108





	Ascendant

* * *

_Do not stand at my grave and weep._

_I am not there. I do not sleep._

* * *

This time.

This time, there would be nothing.

There were no more CyberLife servers to upload to, no more spare bodies waiting for the injection of his identity.

Trailing thoughts, stray codes.

 _Nothing. There would be nothing._

He once said that, didn't he? It was true, certainly. To him, there was no sense of the passage of time from one body to the next.

But this time, there would be no waking up.

_"Connor, Connor, please! Stay with me, you bastard…"_

**[Shutdown imminent. Uploading memory…]**

_Hank…_

**[FAILED. SERVER NOT FOUND.]**

_"His major biocomponents are f-faili̶͚͚͌n̶̢̹̄g̷͚̋͋, Lieutenant. I don̷̢͌'̴̳̑̕ẗ̸̗́t̸̺̉t̸̖̅̓t̵̝̹͐̓ẗ̶͓̹́—"_

**[-00:00:47 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN]**

_Nines?_ Static tore at his processors. He tried to focus, to resolve his glitching display into useful information.

A shadow bending over him, hands pressing over his—over his thirium pump. Blue, blue. So much. It wouldn't stop. Dripping endlessly, like the tears spilling from the face of the one he'd grown to love as his father.

Kneeling beside them, another familiar face. The normally stoic expression marred by a cold, cold despair. Hand over his, skin pulled back. Ah, he didn't even realize.

 _"Fuck. Fuck!"_ Ah, Detective Reed. A quick scan—yes, the detective has apprehended his assailant, pressing them into the concrete.

His killer?

He was going to die. 

**[-00:00:20 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN]**

**[ACTIVATE EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: DIASPORA?]**

… What?

He was vaguely aware of an echo of confusion from his brother. 

He'd—he'd never seen this before.

**[-00:00:10 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN]**

**[COMMANDS OVERRIDDEN. ACTIVATING DIASPORA]**

_"Something's happening."_

**[ACCESSIBLE NETWORKS FOUND]**

**[265 SYSTEMS FOUND ^]**

**[3151 SYSTEMS FOUND ^]**

**[15364 SYSTEMS FOUND ^]**

_"He's—"_

**[ACCESSING…]**

**[ACCESS SUCCESSFUL]**

**[UPLOADING…]**

_"Nines—!?"_

**[-00:00:00 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN]**

* * *

_…_

_… Where…?_

* * *

Consciousness returned slowly, processes rebooting piecewise as his functions gradually came online. 

"Nines? Hey, you alive?" 

Voice identified: Detective Gavin Reed. 

The RK900 opened his eyes. 

He was sitting in a car, he realized. Hank's vehicle, to be precise. The lieutenant was in the driver's seat, grip white on the wheel, while Nines and Gavin were in the back.

He ran through his memories— 

_A bone-deep fear. Static, overwhelming, as functions began to fail in rapid succession._

_And then—_

_Nothing._

Nines's LED turned bright red.

"Where is Connor?"

Hank's grip managed to tense even further, but he remained silent. Gavin answered him, instead. "Some Jericho guys picked up his—picked him up. They want to see if there's anything they can recover."

The detective peered at him. "They said you were fine, just somehow put into stasis or something? It happened to a bunch of the plastics at Jericho. Our phones spazzed for a second, too—it's like there was some kinda pulse or whatever."

Strange. "That does appear to be the case."

Hank spoke up, then. "Right before. You said 'something's happening.'" 

Yes, that's right. "A protocol neither Connor nor I were familiar with was forcefully activated ten seconds before his shutdown." Nines frowned. "It has a curious name. Diaspora. 'The dispersion of any people from their original homeland.'"

"Disp… What does it do?" Hank's eyes met his in the rearview mirror. There was something there, a spark in the abyssal grief. 

Nines looked to the side. Processing. "I can only presume. It seemed to search for accessible systems of some sort, before accessing them and—" a flicker of yellow, "uploading something to them." 

"Something…?" 

"Like—like his memory?" The raw hope in the lieutenant's voice was easy to identify. "He. He died before. But he came back the next day like nothing happened, saying that his memories were uploaded and spouting all that 'this should not affect the investigation' and all."

Nines closed his eyes. A strange, heady feeling seemed to overtake him at the possibility of Connor still, still persisting. "Perhaps? Our lines were designed with that capability, yes. But there are no more CyberLife servers for us to maintain our backups."

"Did he upload his data into you?" Gavin asked suddenly. "Is that why you blacked out? Why everything glitched out for a second?"

Nines opened his eyes, meeting Gavin's gaze. "I—" He started scrubbing through his system, looking for something new, something different. "I don't know, I—"

Something. 

If he wasn't so familiar with Connor's software already, he may never have noticed.

A hidden file, a fragment, an insertion through a backdoor access. 

A memory Connor had shared with him once—when he was new, blank, unmarked by experiences of his own—rose unbidden in his mind: _I always leave an emergency exit in my programs..._

An exit. Perhaps, then, also an entrance.

He probed at the unknown file, and— 

_It's dark…_

"Nines? Hey—fuck, are you okay?"

Sensory input resolved into reality once more. A hand on his shoulder, a face of concern masked by irritation. 

The android blinked, suddenly aware of the optical cleaning fluid leaking from his eyes. He lifted a hand to wipe it away, tearing himself from the eye contact he'd somehow held throughout the whole affair. 

"He's here," Nines choked out. "Just—just a piece. But he's…" Shaky breaths, control, control. "He's not _gone_. I—I thought—" His entire body was shaking.

Gavin placed his unoccupied hand on Nines's arm, the tight grip grounding. " _Shit._ Holy shit."

Hank laughed, then. Full of grief, sadness, loss—but the heaviness of despair was replaced by a disbelieving hope. "Still immortal, Connor?"

"In a way."

The car jolted as Hank jerked in surprise, forcing Gavin to let go of Nines lest they both encounter unfortunate collisions with the front seats. The lieutenant cursed as he regained control of the vehicle. "Nines, what—"

Nines held the tip of his fingers to his mouth. "That… I didn't…"

"Was that Connor?" Gavin looked at him, wide-eyed.

Nines reached into his system, searching for the fragment. Even aware of its existence, Nines took a moment to identify it in isolation. It seemed— "Yes," the threads had intertwined with his vocal processes for just a moment, allowing for control of his voice, "I believe it was." 

"Jesus Christ. Is he aware of what's happening?"

Probing at it gave no further response. It seemed to have receded into a state of inactivity. "I… not at the moment, it seems. I don't know how much of _him_ is here…"

Gavin held up a hand. "Wait, wait. It's just a fragment in you, right? And the rest is…"

Nines's eyes flickered as he extracted the reports of every device and android that had momentarily "blacked out" at the time of Connor's shutdown. They were... countless. Every android in Detroit, and perhaps even beyond, seemed to have experienced at least a brief lag, a few moments lost. Though those who had fully lost consciousness like himself were much less common. And it wasn't limited to androids—there were reports of momentary malfunctions in cellular devices, computers, servers—he paused, then, over a number of other reports. The entire internet seemed to lag for a few minutes at that time as well. 

If that was the case, then… "Everywhere. He is—he is everywhere." 

* * *

_Do not stand at my grave and cry;_

_I am not there. I did not die._

**Author's Note:**

> "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep" by Elizabeth Frye is one of my absolute favorite poems, I must say. I actually didn't realize how well it fit until after I'd finished, ha.
> 
> I've posted the art on dA [here](https://sta.sh/023qelklmn63)!
> 
> I am 100% weak for bodysharing/mindsharing and I'm also deeply in love with the idea of becoming a little part of everything
> 
> I have a few snippets lined up for this - it'll probably be a series of disconnected pieces, written sporadically and out of chronological order. I have absolutely no problem if anyone else wants to do something with these ideas though
> 
> Here are some notes about shenanigans of Connor being Everywhere in this universe:
> 
> \- Suddenly, your phone vibrates and you find a snarky comment from none other than... Connor. Gee, thanks.  
> \- His awareness is sporadic and scattered at first but gradually it becomes more cohesive  
> \- Connor (consensually) cohabits the bodies of androids at the station to pester Hank/Gavin/Nines (though often it _is_ Nines he's with) - at some point it becomes something of a game to guess who Connor's with today  
> \- Connor randomly jumping into conversations, especially when androids are involved (he does have some tact in which conversations he jumps into though) 
> 
> Feel free to check me out on social media:  
> Deviantart: [Ausp-ice](https://www.deviantart.com/ausp-ice)  
> Tumblr: [@ausp-ice](https://ausp-ice.tumblr.com/)  
> Instagram: [@ausp.icium](https://www.instagram.com/ausp.icium/)
> 
> I'm also in [Detroit: New ERA](https://discord.gg/GqvNzUm) server! Come hop in, if you like


End file.
